Track Listing

1. Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground
2. Hotel Yorba
3. I'm Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman
4. Fell In Love With A Girl
5. Expecting
6. Little Room
7. The Union Forever
8. The Same Boy You've Always Known
9. We're Going To Be Friends
10. Offend In Every Way
11. I Think I Smell A Rat
12. Aluminum
13. I Can't Wait
14. Now Mary
15. I Can Learn
16. This Protector

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2165 in Music
• Released on: 2001-09-24
• Number of discs: 1

CD Description
The Detroit brother and sister duo provide raw bluesy rock for their second album. Most of the songs are deliberately simple, containing elements of The Stooges, MC5 and The Kinks. Blues-tinged garage rock scaled down to its most essentialelements, a guitar, drum kit and sneering vocals. Includes the singles 'Fell In Love With A Girl', 'Hotel Yorba' and 'Dead Leaves On The Dirty Ground'.

Customer Reviews

Advancing the field
I'd not heard the White Stripes before buying this album on the recommendation of a friend, except on a couple of live TV shows, where their sound levels were set up terribly so you couldn't hear any vocals and far too much drums. I thought they were pants, basically.

Then I listened to "Hotel Yorba" and haven't been able to get the bloody thing out of my head for weeks. This is an album charged with energy and passion; each song is loaded with either deep emotion or just raw love of what they're doing. The songs range from the gentle ballad of "The Same Boy You've Always Known" to the energetically throbbing "I Think I Smell A Rat". And - what a bonus on the music scene as it stands today - the Stripes' lyrics actually have some thought and truth behind them; a novelty rather than the norm these days, sadly. As I've already said, "Hotel Yorba" is disturbingly catchy... but then so are almost all the other songs on this album, particularly the introductory "Dead Leaves on the Dirty Ground" and "Fell In Love With a Girl".

And all this musical quality, which really does advance the rock 'n' roll genre, with 3 instruments in total. A guitar, a drumkit and a keyboard. Produced on the ragged edge - they do their thing, and that's that; quite often you can hear the odd word or "Can you get me the-..." in the background recorded in the track itself, before the song has even finished. "Little Room" only has drums and Jack's vocals, yet it's one of the highlights of the album, lasting all of a minute and a half. It says a lot about the quality of this album that it's so thoroughly engrossing and engaging with such slipshod production values and often tragically short songs - in total it's only about 40 minutes long. In fact, my one complaint about this rough and ready piece of musical excellence is that it's too damned short! If it wasn't for the invention of the "Repeat All" button this would be much more of a concern... as it is, you can leave this disc on repeat for as long as possible; believe me, it's worth every minute.

Truly fantastic record (and a female drummer!)
I heard Johm Peel once decribe the White Stripes as "the most interesting sound since punk", and this album certainly dosnt dissapoint. Between the two of them, Mary and Jack White have created a sound and a tempo that is almost unique to themselves, thanks largely to Jack's fantastic voice which alternates between a spitting passion, gravelly kittykat growl and breaking country twang (and sometimes all three at once!).

Although it cannot quite maintain its momentum over the last few tracks, the first 12 contain everything you could possibly wish for, from the anti-capitalist anger of "The Union Forever", to feelgood tracks like "Hotel Yorba" and "Fell In Love With a Girl", the gentle whistfulness of "Going to be Friends" (which would not have been out of place on a Kingsbury Manx album) and the unashamed rock theatre of "Smell a Rat".

Above all this album is simply one of the most enjoyable and satisfying i have ever heard. If you have ever liked any song with drums, guitar and vocals in it then there will be something on this album you will enjoy.

Totally wild, totally original and totally brilliant!
OK, so the White Stripes are old news, but having just seen them perform Dead leaves and the dirty ground on the Top of The Pops' 2000th show, I just had to come through, put the album on full blast and rave about these guys again.

From Detroit, Jack and Meg White (brother and sister) are...what to say? Amazing? Incredible? I think the one that sums them up the best is powerful. Ok, so the music is rough, Jack's voice breaks sometimes and Meg can be a little eratic in her drumming, but everytime i hear 'fell in love with a girl'(a funky song just 1 minute 40 secs long) I feel something explode inside me and a need to play it at least 6 times to feel fufilled!

Every track on this album is perfection, the closest to a dud is 'i think we're going to be friends' but even then it serves as a break from Meg's frantic drumming and lets Jack's voice calm down. My favourite song, apart from 'fell in love with a girl' has to be 'i can't wait'. Its beautiful, the guitar riff at the beginning is melancholy and filled with longing, with Jack's voice practically whispering 'Who do you think you're messing with girl?' trying desperatly to sound defiant. then the drums kick in and it turns into a shouty, 'god i hate you but i can't leave you alone' song interspersed (sorry about bad spelling!)with tenderness.

I can't possible say everything about this band that i want, everytime I hear them something wells up inside me and every time i listen to it, it sounds like the first time.

Feel no shame about buying this album a year after people raved about them, about jumping on the band wagon. Just buy it and feel better knowing that at least one band in the world has got it right.